


to die; to sleep; perchance to dream

by Manuscriptor



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Scourge isn't killed by Firestar, also read Bone's and Scourge's relationship however you want, idk how else to tag that, slightly graphic description of a slow death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manuscriptor/pseuds/Manuscriptor
Summary: Instead of being killed by Firestar in the forest, Scourge and his cats return to the streets of the city.As Scourge grows, his collar doesn't grow with him.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	to die; to sleep; perchance to dream

Scourge left the forest to the feral cats, scoffed at their self-imposed laws, and took his cats with him. His numbers were thinned. They didn’t talk about the cats that had been coward enough to switch sides. Scourge thought of it as a way to know who were truly loyal and those who weren’t. 

They went back to their streets, back to their dumpsters, and back to their hunting. 

Scourge set strict boundaries with the forest, ordering daily patrols to make sure it was held. Any cat caught crossing one way or the other had their ears shredded. It was simple and efficient. 

Sometimes, at the end of the day, when Bone and Scourge curled up together in their nest clawed out of the back of an abandoned sofa, Bone would tell him of the eyes and tails they would see in the underbrush. Apparently the forest cats were watching them just as closely. 

“Good,” Scourge would always say. “That’s exactly how it should be.” 

The days got cold and then got hot again. Food was scarce and then plentiful. Kits lived and died. It was life same as always. Scourge grew, almost as big as Bone. He liked to stand side-by-side with his deputy, comparing the way that their shoulders now matched in height, and, if Scourge stood tall almost on his tiptoes, he could look over the top of Bone’s head. 

But Bone was bulkier than him, muscled in a different way. He had been on the streets longer and had more scars. That didn’t stop him from looking at Scourge with a look of respect and admiration, something fatherly and something more. 

Neither he nor Scourge talked about it. 

That was the way of life. 

The first time Scourge noticed anything different from his normal routine was random morning sometime when the weather was hot. 

He and Bone had woken early, walking the forest border together in silence. Not many other cats were awake this early anyway, and the forest was just as quiet. They decided on breakfast, naturally, hungry and eager for food. 

They chose an easy hunting spot, behind a restaurant that always smelled like meat. The mice were fat and lazy here, usually easy to catch. This was Scourge’s own hunting ground normally, and other cats knew to keep their distance, at least, when he was around. 

He and Bone took the alley by storm, scattering their prey. It was a game at first, laughing and batting their quarry back and forth. They weren’t hungry enough to kill it right away. Besides, Scourge always liked the exercise and he was still young. 

Bone made the first kill and then quickly the second, settling down with his meal and leaving Scourge to catch his own. Scourge was panting but having too much fun. It had been a while since he had gotten this tired just hunting prey. He wasn’t sore from any fight and he hadn’t run himself ragged in a long time. Still, he found himself panting more and more, the mice slipping between his paws and disappearing under the dumpsters and out of reach. 

He hissed in frustration. 

This had never happened to him before. 

He tried again, prowling up to a mouse on the far side. He pounced, but didn’t have the breath in his lungs to give him enough strength. He fell short, having to scramble to get his claws in the prey. His shoulder hit the metal of the dumpster in the struggle, sending a stabbing pain down his side. The mouse used his momentary distraction to slip away to safety. 

He spat a curse as he pushed himself up. Now he was limping, and hunting would be even harder. 

Wordlessly, Bone stood, swallowing the last bite of his own meal before stalking off behind a pile of boxes. 

Scourge hissed at him, too out of breath and exhausted from his short hunt to say anything or even follow after him. Gutless traitor. Gone at a moment's notice. Flea-bitten useless bag of bones. 

Just as quietly as he had left, Bone returned, carrying another dead mouse. He didn't say anything as he dropped it and then pushed it over to Scourge. He didn't even look at him, just returned to his spot and began grooming his face. 

Scourge looked at the mouse and then at Bone. 

These weren't the rules of the clan. If he couldn't catch his own food, he didn't deserve to eat. He shouldn't have to rely on another cat. That wasn't how Bloodclan worked. 

Scourge tore into the mouse, eating it quickly as if Bone might take it back at any moment. It wasn't the fullest he had been, but Scourge was grateful to have something in his stomach rather than nothing. He didn't thank Bone, didn't want to put himself even more in his debt. 

Instead, they left the alleyway together, heading to another part of the town to sun themselves and relax. 

Their days were normally lazy. Sometimes, Scourge would settle disputes or help fighting cats decide who was right and who was wrong. Other days were filled with food and naps in the sun and catnip stolen from two-leg gardens. 

Today was one of those days. 

It was much later, when the days got dark and cats tended to wake up with frost on their whiskers, that Scourge realized something was really wrong. 

He and Bone would run across the highway, dodging cars. On the other side was a huge junkyard, filled with odds and ends and always a rat to eat. It was always a fun trip, adrenaline and excitement from the danger with a full stomach at the end. It was supposed to be something nice, something that only Scourge and Bone had together. 

They stood, side-by-side, shouldering each other and laughing, egging each other on and promising that they would beat the other. 

They didn’t even wait for a break in the cars.

They took off, sprinting and laughing and dodging between wheels and under huge rumbling beasts. 

Scourge got a face full of smoke right at the end, losing his eyesight as his eyes started to water. He lost his footing next, hitting the gravel and having his paws skid out from underneath him. He rolled then, gravel and rock digging into his shoulders and back, drawing blood immediately with a stinging pain. 

By the time Bone reached him, he was coughing and hacking, trying to clear both his eyes and lungs. He couldn’t see and he couldn’t breathe and it was making him panic. He felt Bone before he felt anything else, the other cat shouldering him up and into the bushes, safety from the eyes of any two-legs. He laid by Scourge while he recovered, and even then, he was still wheezing at the end of it. 

“I’m fine,” he said, managing to get the words out in between his panting. He forced himself to his feet, shoving Bone away even though he wasn’t quite stable enough on his own. “Get off me.” 

Bone didn’t say anything, but he did stay by Scourge’s side as they made their way—much more slowly—to the junkyard, less enthusiastic but neither brave enough to tell the other to turn around. Besides, it wouldn’t make sense to waste a trip.

Scourge was still out of breath by the time they reached the yard. Bone didn’t say anything, just darted off into the piles of junk and disappeared. Scourge didn’t have the energy to do that. He climbed onto the nearest discarded cushion and curled up. He was still wheezing when he drifted off to sleep. 

He woke up with Bone sitting down next to him, jostling him awake as he stretched and made himself comfortable. Scourge glared at him, getting up to give him room and stretching for himself. 

“I’m going to go hunt,” he said, even though there wasn’t really a reason to say it. 

Bone just grunted, already closing his eyes and falling asleep. He smelled like rat and garbage, which meant his own hunt had been successful. Scourge was hoping to copy that. 

As he prowled through the garbage, he could smell the old scents of rats, mice, and cats alike. It was like a puzzle, and Scourge had lived long enough on the streets that he knew exactly how to piece it all together. He found a rat on his second try, a big fat thing that was too busy washing the sugary gunk off its whiskers that it wasn’t even paying attention to him. 

Scourge positioned himself, crouching downwind and beginning his hunt. It should have been an easy kill. 

Halfway through his approach though, Scourge found himself panting. Normally, he was able to control his breathing, keeping the breaths long and slow. His body didn’t want that apparently. He couldn’t breathe like that, he _needed_ to pant. He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs and it _burned_.

The rat looked up, squeaked in alarm, and took off, scurrying for safety. 

Scourge pounced to give chase but three bounds in and he couldn’t breathe. His collar was impossibly tight around his throat and it was crushing him. He kicked at it, briefly, collapsing on his side as he thrashed, trying to wedge his foot underneath the fabric to tear it away. Age and the protruding teeth and bone had done nothing to weaken it. He couldn’t get it off, and he was left to lay in the dirt until he caught his breath. 

Angry, hungry, and frustrated, Scourge returned empty-handed to the cushion where Bone had woken up and was grooming himself. 

“Find anything?” Bone asked as he stalked past. 

Scourge growled in response. He wasn’t happy with himself at the moment, and he would snap at anyone who reminded him of his failure. 

Bone fell in step behind him without asking anymore questions. 

Scourge ate dinner out of a trash can, managing to open a plastic container to get at the meat and bones inside. He went to bed without grooming himself. 

Mornings got harder and harder to wake up to. Scourge didn’t want to move. Everything left him weak and out of breath. His chest burned constantly. When Bone wasn’t looking, he would kick and claw at his collar in an effort to get it off. He couldn’t do it for long. Everything made him tired. 

Bone noticed everything but didn’t comment. He would bring mice and bits of food back to their nest, not commenting on the way Scourge tore into every meal. It was getting harder and harder to swallow, but Scourge didn’t tell him that. Everything made him scared. 

One day, Scourge couldn’t even find the strength to get out of bed. He hadn’t been able to eat the past couple days, and the rotting mice scattered around the area was evidence enough of that. His chest ached like it had been clawed open. Every time he breathed, it was just another stab of pain. Scourge wheezed constantly, and it hurt him more when Bone didn’t say anything about it. 

He just sat alongside Scourge, grooming him carefully and nudging the newest mouse a bit closer, within reach, whenever Scourge didn’t eat. 

“Tell them I was killed,” Scourge said, whispering the words. Anything louder was too exhausting. 

“What do you mean?” Bone asked calmly, ever patient and ever understanding. 

“The other cats,” Scourge said. “Tell them I was killed. I don’t want to die like this.” 

And that was the first time he had admitted it and it terrified him. Scourge didn’t want to cry. He hadn’t cried in the longest time, and the feeling was so incredibly foreign. Still, the salty tears streaming down his fur betrayed him. It was the first liquid he had had in days, and he licked without meaning to. 

“It’s alright,” Bone said. “I’ll tell them you were killed in a fight. I’ll tell them . . . there was a dog, five times your size. We were at the junkyard when he attacked. You fought him over an entire deer carcass. And you won.” 

Scourge listened to the story of himself, of glory he never actually had. It was like his mother telling his siblings a bedtime story. He hadn’t thought about his family in such a long time. He wheezed, not wanting the thoughts and memories but helpless to stop them. Bone talked about his fight with the dog. He had somehow managed to kill the huge thing, landing a critical blow to its throat but not before it had clamped its own jaws on his stomach. 

In the story, he died with his guts out. He crawled free of the beast’s jaws and gorged himself on the feast that he had fought for. He collapsed then, and, full and fat and glorious, he had passed away. 

In reality, Scourge fell asleep before he died. 

He dreamed of a life he didn’t have. He dreamed he lived indoors, eating scraps from his owner’s plate and growing fat in a life of luxury. It was a good dream. There were always sunbeams to nap in and always someone to scratch him behind the ears. 

His mother wasn’t there, but her love was. 

In the reality, in the dream, Scourge died with someone who loved him. 

And he didn’t have to go into the forest to find it.

**Author's Note:**

> please buy your cats breakaway collars 
> 
> also, I'm on tumblr @manuscriptor


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